Rude Rudy

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rudeRudyRude Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York, and unsuccessful Republican Presidential nominee, says President Obama doesn’t “love” America, and then he said his remarks are not racist because Obama had a white mother.   Sounds crazy – and it is – but it’s also true.

Rudy has terminal West Wing envy. And not very good political judgment.  Or good manners.

Rudy was hosting a reception at the formerly chic mid-town NY watering hole, “the 21 Club,” on West 52nd Street, for Governor Scott Walker – so the Governor could find some open checkbooks for his nascent presidential campaign.

That fund-raising reception may have also been calculated to position Rudy for a cabinet post should Republican Governor Walker win the 2016 Presidential sweepstakes.

But Rudy’s gotta hate and, seemingly, no one more than President Obama.

At this “private” gathering, Rudy said, “I do not believe that the President loves America.”  Rudy also said, “I know this is a horrible thing to say.”  Then, why did you say it Rudy?  Because it was “private.”  You’d think he would have learned something from “the Mitt.”

Rudy later unwisely added that his remarks about Obama’s upbringing should not be considered racist because the president was raised by “a white mother.”

It sounds like something a comic like Jon Stewart would make up.  But no, it’s true.  Rudy really said that. Continue reading →

Evolution and education

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scottwalkercbsnewsWithin one day of the 206th anniversary of the death of Charles Darwin on February 12th, Governor Scott Walker (R-WI), testing the waters to run for President of the United States, “punted” on the question of whether he believed in Evolution.

A British Moderator asked Governor Walker, “Are you comfortable with the idea of evolution, do you accept it, do you believe in it?

Mr. Walker said, “I’m going to punt on that one as well.  That’s a question a politician shouldn’t be involved in one way or the other, so I’m going to leave that up to you.”

The moderator responded, “Really?”

Another possible Presidential wannabe in the 2016 sweepstakes, former Governor Mike Huckabee, was one of three Republican presidential contenders in the May 2007 Republican primary debate who said he didn’t believe in evolution.

We have High School students across the nation who know better than that. Continue reading →

St. James’ movie on political $ prompts debate

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pay2playSt. James UCC advertised that they were convening a “non-partisan” viewing of a movie at 7 PM last Tuesday to consider how campaign finance compromises democracy and representative government.

David Weintraub said, “Wherever you are on the political spectrum there seems to be pretty broad agreement that the way campaigning is done is negative, distasteful and drives people away from engagement.”

David publicized the movie, “Pay2Play,” among other ways, on Facebook, at Lovettsville 20180.

Frank McDonough led the charge, however, posting an FB dissent, testing how “broad” the agreement actually was about the perils of campaign finance, claiming the advertised movie was too liberal, and attacked David, saying: “I have followed your editorials in many local papers for a few years. I am reasonably sure that I have never agreed with any of them.”

Warner Workman, Jr., said, “I would much rather be lied to a[nd] feel good than hear the truth.”

Frank said, “As far as your Pastor [Don Prange] I have never met him, either but imagine my surprise when my family in Charleston WV called to tell me that he had been arrested there at a UMW rally.”

David responded, “I am very proud of my pastor. It’s easy enough to sit in church and wring our hands and say ‘Isn’t it awful how those people are treated?’  To put your own body on the line, as in the very robust Christian tradition of the civil rights movement, back to Abolition and beyond, takes courage and commitment to the life and teachings of Jesus.” Continue reading →

Don’t go near the water!

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oiledgull

U. S. Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine along with Governor Terry McAuliffe have endangered Myrtle Beach and the Outer Banks and, more generally, our Atlantic coastal waters.

They support foul and dirty development in the waters offshore, fighting for the right of the toxic fossil fuel industry to drill for gas and oil.

They are most reassuring.  You know that soft tonal incantation politicians hone to reassure us that all will be just fine.  It makes you scream.  You want to shout, “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire.”

We can still remember the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.  The BP spokespersons enunciated in soft oleaginous tones, “It will be just fine.”  But they weren’t even close.

The White House closed off drilling in the Atlantic Coastal waters after the disastrous BP spill.  Anything else would have been unreasonable.  We witnessed in relentless television and print and digital coverage how the Horizon disaster killed tourism, how few flocked to oil-stained beaches wanting to see mired birds dying, and how the fishing industry had nowhere to go but down.

Now President Barack Obama has reversed field, caving to pressure from the fossil fuel giants who want oil and gas drill rigs in place from Virginia to Georgia.

We are still unsafe because the reforms in the industry range from moderate to nothing at all when it comes to avoiding the risk of an oil spill or a blowout. Continue reading →

Sniper Chris Kyle – hoorah?

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chriskyle

The “American Sniper” movie and autobiography by Chris Kyle that spawned “the movie” are taking unrelenting twitter fire.

It’s an Iraqi dust storm obscuring what’s accurate about the sniper’s character and what he did in the war.

It also tears open the mortal wound inflicted on the nation’s psyche by a war that many believe never should have been.

Chris Kyle, a Texan who believed in our country, was at a loss to make something out of his life as a private citizen.

Chris joined the military to find his home among the elite as a Navy SEAL, finding purpose and joy in combat, and becoming legend – as an historic sniper.

Chris put aside family, fear of risk to his life, suffered swimming that he hated, skirted sharks and sea lions, endured humiliating and abusive training exercises, and combat hardship, in ways few people on earth can imagine. Chris finished four tours in the mid East conflict in Iraq, coming home at the end in the fog of fear and anxiety, suffering what war inflicts on the best of warriors, indeed the shock of war that few escape.

The best indication who Kyle truly was is found in his “autobiography” that sounds in several different voices.

In person published interviews with Chris allow you to pick out what most resembles Chris’ own voice from among the “others” who helped him write his bio.

If I had not read the entire book, I would reduce Chris’ code as a warrior to the fun of killing savages, as stated in the first few pages.  But what’s said afterwards is more nuanced. Continue reading →

We’ve got to do better

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MLK: “Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”

MLK: “Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”

There’s a big difference between condemning religious fanatics slaughtering a dozen unarmed political French cartoonists for satirizing the prophet Mohammed, and endorsing the content of their satirical expression that is plainly offensive to the non-violent Muslim faithful.

It’s a corollary of free speech that coercion against anyone based on what they express by cartoons, prose, or the spoken word is a fundamental violation of “free” speech.

On the other hand, there is hardly anything more destructive of comity in a world so ready to war, than the express or implicit endorsement of satirical disrespect for the founder and prophet of any religion.

Some say: “What does it matter what they publish?”

Since when have we endorsed freedom without responsibility?

How many are comfortable with disrespectful satirical attacks against their own religions and distasteful remarks that may include Krishna, Zoroaster, Abraham, Moses, Lao-Tsu, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, Martin Luther, John Calvin, George Fox, John Huss, John Wesley, Swedenborg, the Bab, Baha’u’llah, Brigham Young, Mary Baker Eddy, Joseph Smith, or Gandhi?

One million magazines containing these disrespectful images were sold following this grisly slaughter.

We convened a million person march in Paris to protest killings calculated to still freedom of speech but we’re apparently unable to parse the separate question, whether we approve of disrespect against those religious having nothing to do with the killings.

Nor is this just about timing.

There should be some cultural and personal standards of conduct that are sensitive to a non-believer’s disrespect.

Is this offense, making light of a religious leader, and a prophet, anything like the throwback who just has to use the offensive racist N-word?

I think so.  Continue reading →

Jimmie Lee Jackson

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Jimmie Lee JacksonJimmie Lee Jackson, 26 years old, unarmed, and black, was shot in the stomach and beaten by State Trooper James Bonard Fowler, at Mack’s Cafe, in Marion, Alabama, because Jimmie Lee had protested for the right to vote; Jimmie Lee lived a week.

Trooper Fowler was not charged with any crime, and said Jimmie Lee tried to take his pistol.  But that’s not what happened.

We heard something just like this from Officer Wilson when he recently killed an unarmed teenager, Mike Brown, in Ferguson.

Jimmie Lee, however, wasn’t murdered recently.  His cold-blooded murder occurred fifty years ago and became the catalyst for an historic protest march in Selma, Alabama.

On February 18, 1965, Jimmie Lee was in an earlier march objecting that Blacks were denied their right to vote.

Jimmie Lee, a service veteran, a church deacon, a father and a laborer, marched with his mother, sister, 82-year-old grandfather, and several hundred protesters.  Local police and state troopers attacked.  Jimmie Lee and his family ran for their lives, and thought they’d found cover in Mack’s Café.  The troopers charged into the café, like a lawless gang, beating people including Jimmie Lee’s Mom.  Jimmie Lee fought to protect her.  Trooper Fowler shot Jimmie Lee in the stomach.  Troopers chased the wounded Jimmie Lee out of the café into the street and continued to beat him, stopping only when he went unconscious.

The Reverend Martin Luther King visited Jimmie Lee at the hospital.  Upon Jimmie Lee’s death, he said: “We must be concerned not merely about who murdered him but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderer.”  These words unfortunately still have significance today.

At Jimmie Lee’s funeral, the Reverend King said: “he was murdered by the brutality of every Sheriff who practices lawlessness in the name of law.”  Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani might well have said that the Reverend King’s words were expressions of hate toward law enforcement.  

King also said that Jimmie Lee “was murdered by the irresponsibility of every politician, from governors on down, who has fed his constituents the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism.” Continue reading →

1984

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John Flannery 1984

John Flannery 1984

In 1984, I was running for Congress, as the Democratic nominee for the 10th Congressional district, standing on the floor of the Democratic convention in San Francisco, when New York Governor Mario Cuomo challenged the convention and the nation to get on with the business of the American people.  What he said then remains as urgent today.

As it was true of President Ronald Reagan, we shall soon experience a Republican leadership in our U.S. Congress who invoke the golden rule but their actions and words tell us that what they really believe is “social Darwinism” that, as the Governor said then, means the nation “should settle for taking care of the strong and hope that economic ambition and charity will do the rest,” so that “what falls from the table will be enough for the middle class and those who are trying desperately to work their way into the middle class.”

Republicans who so easily invoke Judeo-Christian “values” believe, not what Jesus said in his  Sermon on the Mount, namely, that the meek shall inherit the earth, but that only the strong shall.

I believe, as the Governor said then, that “we can make it all the way with the whole family [of men and women, children and seniors] intact.”  This is a more worthy legacy for public service than what we’ve been getting.  Millions now have health care who didn’t.  The Republican leadership looks to deny that coverage. Continue reading →

To heal

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New York City Police Commissioner, William J. Bratton

New York City Police Commissioner, William J. Bratton

New York City Police Commissioner, William J. Bratton, spoke at an officers’ funeral, over the coffin of Officer Rafael Ramos.  Ramos was killed, shot from behind, by a criminal drifter, while Ramos was in his squad car on duty in Bedford Stuyvesant.  Of all the speakers remembering Officer Ramos, it was “the Commish” who struck the precise correct tone to remember the officer and his slain partner, Officer Wenjian Liu, and to rally those assembled to go forward – and not just to go forward in New York – but across the nation.

Commissioner Bratton said: “We don’t see each other, the police officers and the people mad at the police. If we can learn to see each other, then we will heal, as a department, as a city, as a country. And wouldn’t that be an honor to these officers’ lives?”

At the funeral, Governor Cuomo invoked “the rule of law,” posturing in my opinion, pandering, as he’s more nuanced and able in politics than just to inflame the crowd, especially since the protest following the killing of an unarmed Staten Island resident, Eric Garner, 43, was not about disregarding the law but about the law applying to a police officer who killed an unarmed man, and how he was found blameless, despite the eye witness video and audio recordings of the officer choking the victim to death, and the autopsy confirming the cause of death.

No question that the “rule of law” would have applied to the heinous, cowardly, depraved and addled gunman who ambushed Officer Ramos and his partner in a squad car, had the gunman not taken his own worthless life – and become another catalyst for demagogic trash talk.

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani led the “trash parade” when he said, “We’ve had four months of propaganda, starting with the president, that everybody should hate the police.” Continue reading →

Peace on earth

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Peace on Earth – that’s what this season is all about.

Yet, we’ve witnessed from afar how in a matter of minutes Pakistani school children can be killed en masse by Taliban terrorists.

francisDoveWe wonder whether peace is an elusive idea that perhaps cannot be achieved on earth.

Our leaders raise their voices in hymns of hate.  Words of killing, conquering, overcoming other peoples, fall too easily from the tips of tongues, untested in tasting words of peace, except to justify the wars they wage, preferring death and suffering instead, and often of the truly innocent, dismissed as the collaterally damaged.

It’s hopeful, therefore, when we can seize upon a peace overture that succeeds.

It shows that we are better than the mad impulse to war.

Pope Francis, 78, became Pontiff in March 2013.  Almost from his first day in the Vatican, he worked in secrecy to enable President Barack Obama of the United States and President Raul Castro of Cuba to set aside past distrust and convene a dialogue for peace.   Continue reading →